The acclaimed tale of stuttering George VI flattered to deceive at the Golden Globe awards on Sunday, where it picked up just one award from seven nominations. But the film will have home-turf advantage when the Baftas are presented in London on 13 February. Early signs suggest that the coronation is not cancelled, just postponed.

"It's a very good year for the Brits," said Bafta deputy chairman David Parfitt. "Britain has always punched above its weight in the film world. We are always quite well represented at the Oscars as well as the Baftas.

"So it's not that [the Baftas] have a particular British bias, it's that British film plays well across the world."

The film stars Colin Firth as an agonised George VI, who struggles to overcome his speech impediment with the help of an unorthodox Australian speech therapist, played by Geoffrey Rush.

The film was shortlisted across a wide range of categories, including best film, outstanding British film, best director and best actor. Its 14 nominations put it a whisker ahead of its nearest rival, Black Swan. Darren Aronofsky's backstage melodrama has 12 nods, followed by Inception with nine.

But the Baftas also threw a lifeline to True Grit, which had been comprehensively snubbed by the Golden Globes. The Coen brothers' western bagged eight nominations and is now regarded as a dark horse prior to the awards.

The King's Speech is one of the most heavily nominated films in Bafta history, but still less so than Gandhi, which was shortlisted for 16 and won five.

Fresh from taking the best actor Globe on Sunday, Firth is now the bookies' favourite to follow that with a Bafta. If so, it will be his second victory in as many years, having won the same award in 2010 for his performance as a grieving college professor in A Single Man.

"To get to this stage in life with your dignity and judgment intact can be somewhat precarious," the 50-year-old actor admitted as he accepted the Globe. "Sometimes all you need is a bit of gentle reassurance to keep you on track."

With The King's Speech on the best film shortlist are True Grit, The Social Network – based on the founder of Facebook – science fiction thriller Inception and Black Swan. The Firth film's rivals on the best British film shortlist are 127 Hours, Another Year, Made in Dagenham and Four Lions, the controversial jihadist comedy by the satirist Chris Morris.

Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are both nominated for best actress for their roles in The Kids Are All Right, alongside Natalie Portman (Black Swan), Noomi Rapace (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) and 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld, who makes her film debut as True Grit's pintsized angel of vengeance. The best actor battle is between Colin Firth, Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network), Jeff Bridges (True Grit), Javier Bardem (Biutiful) and James Franco (127 Hours).

Elsewhere, Pete Postlethwaite – who died earlier this month – is in the frame for a posthumous Bafta. Postlethwaite was nominated in the best supporting actor category for his role as a malevolent florist in the Boston-set crime drama The Town.

But Postlethwaite may not be the only posthumous winner this year. The success of The King's Speech can be read, in part, as a bittersweet reward for the UK Film Council too. The organisation helped finance the £9m production but was controversially abolished last July – shortly before Hooper's film made its triumphant debut at the Toronto film festival.

"This year's Bafta nominations underline the breadth and creative excellence of British film-making," said Tanya Seghatchian, outgoing head of the UKFC's film fund.

"With a staggering £10.7m at the UK box office in 10 days, 14 Bafta nominations and a Golden Globe, The King's Speech is a great British success story."

For the limping, lame duck UKFC, however, the cavalry has arrived just a moment too late.

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